Memory and Cognition Demonstrations and Tutorials

Department of Psychology

These are demonstrations that I completed during the Fall of 2005. They cover various phenomena in memory and cognition. Please feel free to download the demostrations for your classroom use. If you have any problems with these demonstrations, please contact me. I STRONGLY recommend that you try a demonstration several times before you use it in your teaching.

Please provide me with feedback regarding these demonstrations. If something does not work, I want to fix it. If the demonstrations work well, I need to provide evidence of their use. So, please contact me.

These are the first demonstrations that I created for this site. All of these files are executable files. Eventually, I will delete these files. So, if you really like these old demonstrations better than the newer ones, you should download them and save them on your own computer. I STRONGLY recommend that you try a demonstration several times before you use it in your teaching.

Recent Demonstrations

All of the programs in this table may be downloaded and used on your own computers. You advance WITHIN each slide by pressing the left mouse button. You can advance to the next slide by pressing the left mouse button several times, pressing the Enter key, or clicking on the arrow or 'next' button (if one appears). You can stop a program at any time by pressing the ESC key. When you stop a program, you will see a brief copyright announcement from Astound. If you hold the left mouse key down and drag, you have a pencil to mark on the screen. If you press the right mouse button, you get a menu of slides and can move to any slide.

I am still cleaning these up as I use them. If you have any problems with these - please let me know! I will try to fix them as soon as possible. However, I cannot guaranteee that your class will perform the same way that the participants in any of the original studies performed.

This demonstration includes a series of memory span tasks designed to demonstrate that working memory capacity can be affected by a variety of task variables, including chunking and the organization of the list.

This demonstration is based on the operation span task described in Conway and Engle (1996). Participants are exposed to various series of stimuli in which they must solve a short math problem and remember a list of words. The operation span task may be a more valid means of assessing overall working memory capacity than is a traditional digit span or word span test.

This demonstration is based on Wickens, Born, and Allen (1963). Participants engage in a series of similar memory tasks. The last task involves a different category of stimuli than the rest of the tasks. If proactive inteference develops, participants should show a drop in performance across the tasks up to the last one. If proactive interference develops, release from the proactive interference is evident if the participants perform better on the last task than that task immediately prior to it.

This demonstration is based on Waugh and Norman (1965). Participants engage in a probed memory task for lists of digits presented at two speeds. The location of the target digit in the list is also manipulated. Results often indicate that interference is a bigger factor in forgetting from working memory than is decay over time.

This is a demonstrations of the serial positions effect using three different lists of words. The first list provides a demonstration of the basic serial positions effect. The second list presents the words at a faster pace, in an attempt to reduce the primacy effect. The third list requires the participants to complete a series of math problems at the end of the list, in an attempt to reduce the recency effect.

This demonstration is based on Craik and Watkins (1973). It is an exploration of the negative recency effect and the relative importance of rehearsal. Participants engage in five serial positions effects tasks, then are asked to recall all of the words from the most recent four lists.

This demonstration is based on the second experiment in Rundus (1971). It is a demonstration of the effect of making a stimulus visually distinctive during a traditional serial positions effect task. The effect of distinctiveness on rehearsal is dicussed.

This demonstration is based on the third experiment in Rundus (1971). It is a demonstration of the spacing effect. When participants are presented with a list of stimuli, stimuli that are repeated with longer lags (separation in the list) are often recalled better than stimuli that are repeated the same number of times, but with shorter lags.

This demonstration is based on the fourth experiment in Rundus (1971). It is a demonstration of categorization and organization in memory. When participants are presented with a 'random' list of stimuli from several different categories, participants will tend to recall the stimulus in category-based clusters even when they were not originally presented in related clusters.

This demonstration is based on Bower, Clark, Lesgold, and Winzenz (1969). Participants are exposed to four lists of terms. Each list is presented with a different level of organization ranging from unorganized through a meaningful hierarchical organization. Participants usually recall words that were presented in a more meaningfully organized format the best.

This demonstration is based in part on the third experiment in Bower, Clark, Lesgold, and Winzenz (1969). Participants briefly read several word lists. The last list provides the full hierachic structure for half of the previous lists. Participants then try to recall all of the words from the lists. In the original researech, participants often perform better when the full hierarchic structure was provided, even when it was provided after the words from the lists themselves.

Tthis demonstration is based on research discussed in Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) and Craik and Watkins (1973). In the first part, participants are exposed to a list of words to recall. Different words are repeated 1, 3, 5, and 7 times in the list. Participants often have better memory for words that were repeated more often. The second part is based on the procedure used by Craik and Watkins (1973) to demonstrate that simple rehearsal will not necessarily guarantee good memory.

This is a demonstration based on Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977). In an incidental learning design, participants engage is three different types of processing of words. Results indicate that both processing the meaning of words and relating the words to yourself lead to better memory for the words than does identifying whether or not the words contain a specific letter. This is a demonstration of both the incidental learning paradigm and of levels of processing.

This demonstration is based on Stein and Bransford (1979). Participants are asked to use meaningfully elaborated sentences, imprecisely elaborated sentences, and non-elaborated sentences to help them encode adjectives from the sentences. Results generally indicate that better memory is related to the use of meaningful, precise elaboration during encoding.

This demonstration is based on the second experiment in Stein and Bransford (1979). Participants are exposed to two procedures for generating sentences following sentence stems. The generated sentences are to be used to improve encoding and retrieval of an adjective in the sentence stem. One procedure asks the participants to generate a sentence that indicates what might happen next. The other procedure asks the participants to generate sentences that indicates why the behavior in the sentence occurs. Results often indicate that generated sentences which focus on the cause of behavior provide more meaningful elaboration than generated sentences which focus on what might happen next.

This demonstration is designed to explore the word frequency effect. Participants read two lists of high- and low- frequency words. Following the first, they take a recall test. Following the second , they take a forced-choice recognition test. Then the word frequency effect is discussed.

This demonstration is based on the third experiment in Roediger, Weldon, Stadler, and Riegler (1992). Priming and implicit memory for high and low frequency words are discussed. Participants read a list of words then complete a filler task, a word fraqments test, and a recognition memory test.

This demonstration is based on Pavio, Smith, and Yuille (1968) . In the first part of the demonstration, participants are presented with a series of paired-associates. In one-fourth of the stimuli, both words have a high imagery value (HH). In one-fourth, both have low imagery value (LL). The others are either high-low paires (HL) or low-high pairs (LH). In the second part, the same type of task is used, but the meaningfulness of the stimuli rather than the imagery value is manipulated.

This demonstration is based on Brandimonte and Gerbino (1993). Participants try to interpret classical bistable configurations (CBC), like Jastrow's Duck/Rabbit, either silently or while engaging in articulatory suppression. The results of Brandimonte and Gerbino are discussed and several examples of CBCs are presented.

This demonstration is based on Cooper and Shepard (1973). Participants view numbers and upper-case letters in various angles of rotation. Participants are asked to indicate whether or not the stimuli appear in their normal or mirror view.

This demonstration is based on Shepard and Metzler (1971). Participants pairs of three-dimensional shapes. The stimulus on the right of the screen is presented in various angles of rotation. Participants are asked to indicate whether or not the shapes are the same or not.

This demonstration is based on the third experiment of Thomson and Tulving (1970). Participants are exposed to three paired-associates tasks. In the first two tasks, participants were exposed to strong and weak cues during encoding, with the same cues provided at retrieval. For the third task, participants were exposed to a strong cue at both (SS), a weak cue at both (WW), a strong cue at encoding with a related weak cue at retreival (SW), or a weak cue at encoding with a strong cue at retrieval (WS). The results are discussed in terms of a simple associationist view and in terms of encoding specificity.

This demonstration is based on Roediger and McDermott (1995). Participants are presented with a series of related words to encode. All of the words in each list are strongly related to a word that is not in the list. After each list, participants recall the list. After a short discussion, participants complete a recognition memory test for words from the list. Some of the new words are the strongly related words, some are weakly related, and some are old words from the original lists.

This demonstration is based on Peterson and Peterson's (1959) classic research on memory decay from STM. In the demonstration, participants engage in a color-naming task as the rehearsal prevention task.

This demonstration is presented as a demonstration of the long-term memory for words following a verbal filler task. However, it is designed to introduce the concepts of priming and implicit memory. There will be three tasks. The first will be a recognition memory task. The second will be a true filler task. The third will be a word stem task that is presented as a filler task, but is used to assess implicit memory.

This demonstration is presented as a demonstration of the long-term memory for words following a verbal filler task. However, it is designed to introduce the concepts of priming and implicit memory. There will be three tasks. The first will be a recognition memory task. The second will be a true filler task. The third will be an anagram task that is presented as a filler task, but is used to assess implicit memory.

This demonstration is presented as a demonstration of the long-term memory for words following a verbal filler task. However, it is designed to introduce the concepts of priming and implicit memory. There will be three tasks. The first will be a recognition memory task. The second will be a true filler task. The third will be a word fragments task that is presented as a filler task, but is used to assess implicit memory.

This is a demonstration of Bransford and Franks (1971) study in which participants were presented with several related sentences. Results indicated that the participants recalled the related propositions as integrated concepts.

This demonstration is based on Bransford and Franks (1973). In the first part, participants read sentences that either provide a clear context or an obscure context. Participants are then provided with the subject noun from the sentences and asked to recall the sentence. They frequently will have better memory for sentences that provided a clear context. In the second part, participants once again read sentences that provide a clear context or an obscure context. However, a phrase providing the context is presented above each sentence. Generally, providing the context first improves memory for the obscure sentences.

This demonstration is based on Bransford, Barclay, and Franks (1972). Participants read a series of sentences then take a recognition test. Some of the test sentences are verbatim sentences from the study list, some are strongly implied sentences, and some are more weakly implied. Participants often mistake strongly implied sentences as being from the original list.

This demonstration is based on Bower and Winzenz (1970). Participants apply four different strategies to a paired associates task. The strategies include rehearsal, reading a sentence, creating a sentence, and imagery.

Astound Demonstrations

All of the programs in this table may be downloaded and used on your own computers. Each program has a built-in runtime module, so all you need to do is download the program and click on its icon. You advance WITHIN each slide by pressing the left mouse button. You can advance to the next slide by pressing the left mouse button several times, pressing the Enter key, or clicking on the arrow or 'next' button (if one appears). You can stop a program at any time by pressing the ESC key. When you stop a program, you will see a brief copyright announcement from Astound. If you hold the left mouse key down and drag, you have a pencil to mark on the screen. If you press the right mouse button, you get a menu of slides and can move to any slide.

A demonstration of the whole report method and the partial report method as used by Sperling (1960). Includes a demonstration of the effects of delaying the auditory signal in the partial report method a demonstration of the partial report method using mixed arrays of letters and numbers. Due to a variety of hardware and software problems, this demonstration may not work well. You may only see part of each stimulus. Better demonstrations can be found on the Internet.

A whole report approach to estimating the capacity of iconic memory by counting the number of beans that briefly appear on the screen. Again, due to a variety of hardware and software problems, this demonstration may not work well. You may only see part of each stimulus.

Demonstrations of the serial positions effect using four different lists of words. One list contains related words. In another list, the words are not related. In the other two lists, we try to reduce the primacy and recency effects.

Presented as a test of memory for common words, but actually is a demonstration of the use of the word fragment test as a means of assessing implicit memory. Based on a demonstration from Neath (1998).